WHY CASEY HAD TO DIE
by L.C. Hayden
A retired Dallas police detective discovers that life on the road isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
When the Slayers—fans of the works of Dorothy L. Sayers—invite Harry Bronson (What Others Know, not reviewed, etc.) to be the “consultant” at their weeklong convention at the Sun Lodge in Safford, Ariz., it looks as if he’ll finally make good on his promise to his wife Carol to take their brand-new motor home and see some of the country. Bronson just has to answer questions about police procedure as the mystery buffs solve a murder staged by convention chair L’ee Chalmers with the help of Sun Lodge Events Coordinator Wayne Weeks. But when the centerpiece crime turns out to bear a striking resemblance to Bronson’s first case—the murder of coed Casey Secrist at a frat-house party—he begins to smell a setup. Talking to the contestants does nothing to bring down his blood pressure. Trent Powers was president of the fraternity where Casey was killed; Tom and Marie O’Day are sketchy; and Katherine Shepard all but accuses Bronson of murdering Max, the Slayers’ former consultant, so he could steal his gig. But the more he digs the more cages he rattles, until someone takes Carol to see more of the country than she bargained for.
Part cozy, part thriller, part scavenger hunt, Bronson’s fourth doesn’t quite do justice to any of its genres.